On Modeling the Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Decision-Making Systems

Models of both primate and hunter-gatherer decision-making systems are developed and their relative abilities potentially to detect certain classes of spatial distributions within a standardized environment are compared. It is demonstrated that in situations where language facilitates the pooling of information between individuals within a hunter-gatherer group, the group minimally need only to pool information with one central decision maker in order potentially to recognize all possible spatial distributions within a limited environment. On this basis alone, we would theoretically expect the presence of one-leader groups to be a fairly ubiquitous phenomenon among hunter-gatherers.     

A modern Bodhisattva: How U Nu sees his life

U Nu—Saturday's Son: The Memoirs of the Former Prime Minister of Burma, by U Nu, translated by U Law Yone, edited by U Kyaw Win. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975. 358 pp., illustrated, index, US$15.00. ISBN 0–300–01776–6.     

Consensus and conflict among Australia's leaders∗

This paper reports and analyses survey data on the opinions of 353 top position‐holders in business, trade unions, federal and state politics, the Commonwealth Public Service, mass media, national voluntary associations, and major universities and research institutes during the latter half of 1975. Patterns of elite responses to 15 issue sets aggregating 46 separate opinion items are examined. The main focus is on the extent and configuration of elite conflict and consensus over economic policy, foreign and defence policy, industrial relations, social issues, and institutional structure. In general, substantial conflict between left‐of‐centre and right‐of‐centre elites in all major issue areas, save possibly that of social issues, is found. However, the extent of this conflict varies as between specific policies, over which it is relatively small, and the legitimacy or desirability of various group actions and major policy innovations, over which it is quite large. Whether conflict during 1975 was sufficiently great to threaten the fundamental unity of Australian elites is discussed.